An action-packed week and weekend lead to some serious low amounts of sleep.
Wine Wednesday with the Family to celebrate my fathers birthday was a delicious dinner that turned into a Bourbon fest with some heavily poured glasses of Bookers Bourbon. Bookers was my grandpas’ favorites so it is always nice to enjoy a couple of glasses and hear fun stories about him.
Dinner was homemade Italian beef made by my sister. She nailed it with the ratios of meat and bun. The majority of the time I don’t order this sandwich at the restaurant due to the mess it comes with. I walk out of lunchtime feeling like I need a shower to clean up.
Not sure when it will be my time to host a Wine Wednesday, but I will for sure post the full spread of food and drinks.
Now onto the weekend.
This Saturday as a college buddies birth party. The weather was super nice and sunny with the temperature pushing 70 degrees. Standing on the deck was almost too hot, but that was just that “fools Spring” feeling. once the sun started to set that cold air overcame the warm sunlight and we head indoors to watch the Michigan State and the Texas Tech basketball game. Made a live bet on this game and one a unit so I was feeling pretty good.
The after party went back to the birthday boys house since the sun had set. Old jokes and stories came about with beers. The party was running its course and someone mentioned that “We should go to the Casino” This came at the perfect moment where everybody was deciding whether to go home or go out and there was a handful of us ready to stay out.
The uber ride to the casino was pretty funny with a honda civic packed with a bunch of drunks dudes amped up for the casino. When we arrived at the Casino there were cop cars with lights flashing. Turns out there were literal “gypsies” in the casino that were caught selling drugs and solicitation dates just before we got there.
This group was referenced pretty heavily at the craps table we started playing at and there were some serious jokes at their expense being told by the patrons and dealers alike.
It was long night ant the table but I ended taking home some cash to have a fun breakfast the next day. I’ll be back for some more action soon I bet. lol.
This was my second year for this annual ski trip with a large group of friends from college. I flew into Salt Lake City on Monday and came back to Chicago on early evening Saturday night. It was an action packed trip and was sad to have to come home but was very glad to get home back to my shower and my bed.
Trip Break Down:
Monday was a travel day that turned into quite a ride, to say the least. I’ve traveled quite a bit for work in my career so I have my timeline just right of how to get to the airport. An easy estimate would be over 550 flights, with most of those originating out of O’Hare airport. What I’ve never encountered on my way to the airport was a Level 2 Hazmat situation that locked me in the Loop of Chicago for over 20 minutes. I was stuck in my Uber and was not allowed to leave due the traffic situations and the emergency vehicles blocking the intersections. I was for real stuck in my Uber with now way out except to ride it out.
After what seems like for ever I was able to exit the Uber and make my way down to the Blue line all the way to O’Hare. I made it there with 20 minutes before boarding but, it was to late to check my bag 🙁 I conceded and check my bag for the next in 4 hours. I was on standby with 14 open seats I was pretty confident that I would make the next flight to SLC. I slipped through security with no problem(Thanks TSA Pre-check) and began to walk down the gate to go grab some breakfast since i had all this time to kill.
That’s when I saw my original flight start to board. This was a sad sight and I really debated just jumping on this flight and having one of my buddies grab my bag that was on of the later flights.
In a quick bout of depression, I came up with a great idea! The American Airlines Lounge was a clutch idea. For not a small fee ($59) you have an open bar, what I continental plus breakfast and lunch and all the brownies and cookies you can eat. Trust me the brownies are awesome and I probably have put down a whole tray of them on many a layover. #cuethestomachache
Miller Lite in the American Club at O’Hare Airport
After more than a few beers and 3 or 4 handfuls of brownies, it was time for me to move to the gate to board. Flight time was a lot longer than expected, we were in the air for over 3.5 hours and my butt fell asleep hard. With the delay of getting into SLC, I had to find my own ride to my friend’s house who thankfully loved a quick Uber ride from the airport. With a fast pit stop, we packed our gear up in the truck and headed to the mountains for what was sure to be a wild week.
This trip in an annual event with a mixed group of friends from college and some girlfriends. Our housing was two conjoined condos that were mirrored and most importantly had 2 separate hot tubs to help relax those muscles after the slopes along with a bunch of beer.
Our condos were a 6 min bus ride (free) from the base of Park City which is a huge mountain that has something like 370 runs. The two days that we skied here I was only able to hit about 27 of them. I will need to come back and get a few more days here to really have a complete scope the mountain, but I would definitely recommend it.
We split the 2 days a Park City with active rest day of Snowmobiling at Thousand Peaks. This was insane experience, I highly recommend the three hour tour with a private group if you have enough people with you. I took the chance to rent the upgraded to the faster snowmobile. The 300cc sled was blazing fast and well worth the price, it had no problem charging up the hills/mountains.
Snowmobiled to to the top of the world!
The $20 dollars for insurance was an easy purchase, gave the confidence to be able go full throttle and get a little reckless on the sled. Turns out it’s a lot easier to roll one these things than you think especially when your 250 feet up a mountain and your trying to turn back down hill.
Skiing on Thursday got intense, a small group of us got together and skied our asses off for the whole day. At the end of the day, my slopes app totaled just over 18,500 feet over 16 runs. The legs were burning on the way home. I ran into some trouble after trying to slide down a double black diamond run. I was feeling pretty confident after hitting a bunch of black diamonds threw out the day. The giant moguls on almost vertical terrain way above my skill level. I had to bail on the run 1/2 way through, it just got too hard trying to surge the moguls so I took a cat track to get back to one of the bigger “easier” runs. This where one bad decision turned into a very bad situation, turns out that cat track was not really a cat track. It was an access road to my dismay, so I had to cross country ski in 6 inches of snow for about 40 min to get back civilization.
When I finally popped out of the woods it was magically next a small chair lift. I was greeted by an awestruck lift operator that said: “Where did you just come from?” I responded with “don’t ask” as I plopped on the 2 seaters and caught my breath on the slow ride back to the top of the mountain.
Thursday night was a blast and it snowed quite a bit which got us even more pumped for Powder Mountain the next day. Powder Mountain is a 90 min drive from Park City so we ha dot gets up a little early to try and make the first chair. The ride to the mountain took what felt like forever as all we could see was the deep freshly fallen snow.
As a local Mountain, they only offer 1500 lift tickets a day and at the time of when we got there was still 1100 tickets left. Except for the first lift the runs were empty. IT really felt like our group was the only ones on the mountain. The legs were sore to start the last day of our ski trip, it was only a Green run but my legs felt zapped. It took the next two runs to get my legs firing on all cylinders.
The highlight of the day was the recent deposit of 8 inches of fresh powder the night before our day at Powder Mountain. That much pow pow with on a local mountain with only 500 people in attendance gave us fresh runs all day.
For something like $25 dollars, you can purchase a one way Cat Trek ride to some backcountry lines. Half of our group participated in the Cat lift, it was a packed ride up to the top of the mountain with all the other skiers and snowboarders not in our group.
It was a funny sight having the group stumble out of the back of the Cat with our ski boots on. After we all got kitted up the guide gave the three different subgroups of abilities instructions of what routes to take and what to avoid. I paid extra special attention of what to avoid because there were some real threats in the Back Country. Hidden drop-offs and cliffs trees and rock formations that were really hidden by all the recent snowfall.
I placed myself in the intermediate subgroup and followed them down the little trail to our suggested run. We stopped at the top of the run to plan our attack with began to get daunting. Trees, bushes, rocks/boulders, and a “don’t go left there is a cliff” I was as ready as I was ever gonna be. The snow was so deep it was really hard to turn, took a few slow turns to get the jump turn that everybody talks about. In about 25 seconds it was time to negotiate some trees mixed in with rock formation. As I made it past those obstacles with way to much speed I tired another jump turn which turned into a few head over heels tumbles. Falling in that deep of snow was surrea.l. You fall down but you just sink into the powder. Everything was cushioned so there’s was zero impact with any hard surface. The closest thing I could compare it do if you fell into a ball pit with nerf bullets that were coasted in baby hair lol.
that nice powder did make it hard to get back up on my skis though which I would say is the only downside of being a crap skier on a whole mountain full of powder. That is a great motivation to learn and develop my technique before my next trip.
All in all, this is one of my favorite weeks of the year. The group of people combined with the house the activities and the mountain make for a very exciting action packed week that takes me more than a week to recover from. So worth it though, Hoping to get in at least one smaller ski trips next year to take some lessons and see how wrong I’ve been skiing this whole time lol. Can’t wait till next season!
A fun one in the books for this past week, Thursday night was the 4th round of the Steak and Cigar night. Even though it was very cold walking to the steak house and the cigar lounge it was a lot of fun to be walking around downtown with the dudes.
Sundays dinner also turned into a steak night again with Costco butcher shop had some of the prettiest ribeyes I’d ever seen at Costco. The steaks were located in the Prime meat selection, this has been in an area I always take a peek at while Persuing the free sample in the weekends. In the past I had not pulled the trigger and bought them was that they come in a pack of 4, and I never was willing to freeze this type of quality meat. To be fair I also thought about just eating three steaks in one night to justify purchasing this top quality cut of meat, but that seemed excessive lol.
I also bought the bullet and signed up for an Audible account. I was hesitant to subscribe to this service due to the $14.95 a month. You do get a 1 book credit month and something like 30% of other books outside of the 1 credit a month. So far so good. Hoping to hit more than 15 books this year. The first book I’m Listening to is “The Outsiders” by William N. Thorndike
For two weeks in a row, Sunday has been the best. I took advantage of the extremely cold weather and was able to get a table and the breakfast spot called Batter and Berries. I had tried to get a table at his place 3 times before and was always met with a 90 minute wait times and would always have to find another place to have brunch.
Since the weather was cold I was able to get a table as soon as I walked in. This was a relief since I was really amped to try this place for quite some time and it did not disappoint! I eat the same breakfast on the weekdays so I like to get French Toast on the weekends for brunch and breakfast. I ordered the Super Flight of French Toast which had 5 flavors to sample. Those flavors included Strawberry, Blueberry, Lemon, Carmel, and my favorite Peach Cobbler. I will break down my whole experience in a restaurant review later this week.
Going to shoot for 4 workouts next week and stack it with more days of health-conscious meals.
For time: 75 double DB front squats (35/20) 600 Single-unders 3 miles assault bike/2000m row 50 double DB front squats 350 Single-unders 2 miles assault bike/1000m row
11/27/2018
A. 5 min AMRAP: burpee chest-to-bar pull-ups or burpee pull-upsR
B. 5 min: 60s banded pull-throughs 60s box jumps, step down (24/20) 30s hollow hold + (Rest 2 min) + 10 min @ 85%: 10 DB box step overs (50/hand to 24” – 35/hand to 20”) 5 bar muscle-ups + (Rest 2 min) + 5 min: 60s banded good mornings 60s box jumps, step down (24/20) 30s plank
15/11/18
A. 3 rounds: 100’/arm KB waiter’s walk -Rest 45s Accumulate 30-60s hang from pull-up bar
B. For time: 21 power cleans (135/95) 9 wall climbs 15 power cleans (135/95) 7 wall climbs 9 power cleans (135/95) 5 wall climbs
14/11/18
A. Front squat 5,4,3; 32×1 tempo; Across; Rest 2 min
B. 3 rounds: 10-12 partner glute-ham raises -Rest 30s 30-60s anti-rotational front plank -Rest 1 min
C. E2min for 3 sets/6 rounds: 1st: 30s assault bike or row @ escalating effort – last 7s all out 2nd: 6 touch-and-go hang power cleans + 6 touch-and-go shoulder-to-overhead
12/11/18
A. 10 minute handstand skill work
B. 8 min AMRAP @ 85%: 10 DB snatches, alternating (50/35) 50 double-unders 10 assault bike/row calories 50 double-unders + (Rest 4 min) + 8 min AMRAP @ 85%: 10 DB snatches, alternating (50/35) 50 double-unders
This was a great lunch spot. Food tasted and looked great. My favorite part was the staff, they were so accommodating to me and my guests. Plus, they even let me try their awesome Umami fries.
I built my own Chicken sandwich (a must.) My choices were:
Chicken breast
Not hot sauce * I’m a wuss when it comes to hot stuff*
Biscuit
Buttermilk Ranch Verde sauce
For a side, I got the Umami Fries, and to drink was Custom mixed Arnold Palmer.
The chicken was a thicker cut and fit underneath the Biscuit with just enough overhang. It was a very good meat to biscuit ratio, that never made my mouth feel overly dry. The fries were dusted with a bunch of spices that elevated the entire meal for me. The fries did not need any ketchup at all, but I tried it anyway. The fries definitely need any ketchup, but I suspect they made their own ketchup which tasted better than the standard ketchup you usually see on the table.
When I ordered my Ice tea and lemonade the cashier told me that was a good choice. He went back to the fridge grabbed 2 larger liquid Tupperware containers, one with lemonade and the other with Ice Tea. As he poured his custom blend you good tell this was good drink and oh my it was really good.
For a fast-casual restaurant, this is got to be in my top 3 favorites.
The best part of this clip is the color commentators. They never break character and actually break down her “Olympic effort” run. Plus you gotta love the planning that got Liz into this Olympics, only competing in event that had less than 30 participants so she was guaranteed to qualify. She also didn’t even come in last also, other ladies that went for it and crashed somehow scored lower than riding down the shoot. That the real travesty that a run with ZERO tricks can beat someone that tried to send with a real Olympic effort.
2) USA women’s first Gold medal in Cross County skiing
Extremely thrilling with a massively entertaining final lap that was a fight to the finish. Again the announcers are the ones that really make this event move to the top of my list. So much energy and excitement in their voices, you can’t help but get amped up. Not to undersell the efforts by the ladies, you could see the pain on their face as they were giving it all going neck and neck with the other two teams. So much back and forth, watching this live I had to stand up and started cheering for us to win.
3) Ester Ledecka Winning the Alpine Super-G gold medal on borrowed skis
Whats even wilder is that she is predominately a snowboarder which she just casually also won a gold medal in too. Her face says it all at the end of the run when she is able to see that she won 1st place by .01 seconds #awestruck
Honorable Mentions:
I realize that all three of my favorite moments are all Women’s events. I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbled these games. I did enjoy much more of the games then what I’ve already listed above. Below are two you probably already know about but are worth look if you haven’t watched them yet.
Shaun Whites gold medal half pipe run
USA women’s ice hockey beating Canada for the gold medal
Step 1) Boil approximately 1 gallon of water in 2.5-gallon pot
Step 2) Once water is at a rolling boil slowly pour in 2 cups of granulated sugar. Be sure to keep stirring as the sugar will sink and burn on the bottom of the pot. Once your sure all sugar has dissolved turn off the heat.
Step 3) Steep the equivalent of 16 tea bags of black tea (some other teas work just as fine.) I recommended tying them all together to make it easier to manipulate once the tea bags get soggy. The bags should not steep any longer than 5 minutes. I also squeezed the bags (with my bare hand, HOT!) to get the last of the flavor out of the tea bags and into the pot.
Step 4) Using the coldest water you have, fill the pot to a full 2 gallons. The goal is to reduce the temperature enough to not kill the live culture-SCOBY.
The temperature should be at least under 80 degrees Fahrenheit before you pour the tea into the brewing vessel with the existing SCOBY already in the jar.
Step 5 Be patient in 7-10 days you should be able to enjoy a couple glasses of your very own Kombucha
Shout out to my main man Matt Kombuchade for the starter SCOBY and quick how-to directions.
